


only born inside my dreams

by silverhedges



Series: ging character studies [1]
Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Childhood, Gen, Nen (Hunter X Hunter), Sexism, Trans Ging Freecs, Transphobia, i headcanon ging's nen ability as specialist teleportation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-13
Updated: 2019-01-13
Packaged: 2019-10-09 12:39:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17407079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silverhedges/pseuds/silverhedges
Summary: Ging was never made for Whale Island. [Or: Ging, teleportation and family.]





	only born inside my dreams

**Author's Note:**

> trigger warning for sexism and transphobia

His grandmother bakes incredible lemon cakes. The sponge light and fluffy, the icing thick and laced with flavour. Ging is assigned the tasks of scraping the lemon peels for zest and climbing the trees to pick the lemons on the highest branches. No matter how high he climbs, Ging never falls. These are suitable tasks for him: he isn’t old enough to be allowed the privilege of using the oven and none of the adults are light enough to climb the orchard trees without the branches breaking.

His steps are quiet enough, even with a sack of lemons over his shoulder, that when he appears in the kitchen, he surprises his mother.

She gasps, “I didn’t see you there, Ging!” and then laughing, ruffles his hair. “My quiet little girl! Thank you for the lemons. Go wash your hands before dinner or else your hands will be stained yellow. _Forever._ Go, go!”

Ging nods his head and does as he’s told. As he’s washing his hands, the glimpse of sea in the window distracts him. His hands burn red. It doesn’t hurt. He just runs his hands under the cold water and continues on.

Dinner is as per usual. Ging has the responsibility of setting out the plates. Two at the head of the table for grandmother and grandfather. Two on the right side for mother and Ging. Two on the left side for aunt and uncle. Father has been away at sea for the last three weeks. If Ging could swap his place, if his father could sit where Ging sits, and Ging could be out there, on the wild sea – it would take him a heartbeat to say yes.

The adults talk during dinner and Ging listens. He listens all the time. Half to their conversation and half to the birds outside, singing in the air. He can hear them.

“Ging, aren’t you listening?” His aunt asks, frowning slightly. She married into the family two years ago. Her orange hair and lack of hazel eyes are strange. “I’ve never seen a five-year-old girl so silent. Aren’t girls supposed to talk and talk and never stop?”

“If only more women were like Ging!” His uncle laughs. “I wish I could get you to shut up sometimes! Her future husband will be a very lucky man to just have a silent wife.”

“Oh, shush, you awful man!” His aunt laughs along.

Everyone laughs in this family, except for Ging.

Ging stays silent.

“Don’t be mean to the poor child,” his grandmother scolds. “She’s the only child here on Whale Island, the rest are teenagers, you know that. She’s no one to play with. You should hurry up and have a child so that Ging has a little playmate!”

His grandfather looks at his mother over the rim of his tea cup. His voice is pointed. “Or perhaps you should have waited a few more years until the rest of the women started having children.”

His mother just ruffles Ging’s dark thick hair, inherited from her. “No, no! Maybe it was early, but Ged and I wanted a little girl immediately. And we have such a cute one, eh?”

“Hey, hey, it’s not so bad,” his uncle waves a fork in the air, not even looking at Ging, like he isn’t there, “Just ten more years and then you can marry her off to one of the youngest seamen. That’ll be her sorted!”

His aunt sighs dreamily. “Maybe I’ll have a little girl too. Then they can both get married to seamen and live in this house forever. That would be the dream ending for two cousins… speaking of which, think I could visit my sister next week? Shall we?”

From there the conversation turns on to different subjects. Ging listens but he never speaks.

The house is cramped, what with three couples and one child all living together under the one roof. Ging sleeps in a smaller bed in his parents’ room. His bedtime is earlier than the adults’. It doesn’t matter that much to him, because it means that he can lie alone and read books while his mother is chatting with his grandmother.

Ging never had to learn how to read. He read automatically from the moment he first looked at a book. His mother will still tell the story of how Ging at three years old nearly gave his father a heart attack when he started reading out the newspaper over his shoulder – a report of a grisly murder on the mainland.

He reads myths. The Adventure of D Hunter. The World Tree. The Kurta clan with red eyes. The terrifying family of assassins, the Zoldycks. The four children who were turned into swans for nine hundred years. The great serpent coiled around the tree of the golden fleece. A man who took twenty years to voyage back from the end of a terrible war. The wolf who bit off a warrior’s hand and in doing so began the end of the world. The five rivers that form the boundary between this world and the afterworld.

Ging is a quiet little boy, thin and small for his age. He has curved baby-cheeks, large hazel eyes and thick dark hair down past his shoulders. He wears the clothes his mother lays out for him. Dresses when they’re going out to town, tops and shorts when he wants to run around in the forest. His mother braids his hair for him. He is silent and passive and there is nothing in particular that he wants.

He is still listening. Still learning all that he can about this world that he doesn’t fully understand, about where his place in it is.

When his father returns from sea, two months after his last leaving, he brings with him a large box from the mainland.

He crouches down in front of Ging. They share the same hazel eyes that are passed down among all Freecss. “Hey, kiddo. It’s nearly your sixth birthday, isn’t it? I bought you an early present. Ta-da!” He brings out the box. “I’m not exactly sure of how exactly you use it, but… you’re a smart girl, aren’t you? You can figure it out. Happy early birthday!”

Ging nods, turns the corners of his mouth upwards and holds the box close.

Inside the house, he takes the box apart and learns what it is and how to use it. The recently-released video games console, the JoyStation, with three games included. Ging doesn’t tell his father that he loves it, but he loves it.

He spends an entire week playing all three games to 100% completion. The first game is Mario racing, with three different kinds of speed, over forty characters and sixteen tracks. The second game is an RPG called Dragon Quest 7, with the longest main quest in video game history. The third game is a shooter called Goldeneye. Dragon Quest becomes very dear to Ging’s heart. Imagine making a game like that!

When he’s done playing the games, he takes apart the entire JoyStation to figure out how it works. Then he fixes it back together. When he’s done messing around with the console, he hacks all three games until they are his virtual playground and he can do anything. Anything he wants!

Ging can’t do it alone, of course. He does it with books: on wiring and electricity, on hacking and programming.

Late at night, when his eyes are fixed to the screen, he can hear his parents arguing:

“You bought her that JoyStation and now all she does is sit inside and play it! I can’t get her to go outside, or do chores, or anything! She’s a zombie! You think you can just go off for months and months, then come back and spoil her with – with ridiculous gifts that are getting children addicted? She’s my child!”

“Don’t be silly. Look at how happy she is! She’s miserable all the time, just moping around, being bossed around by you lot. Let the kid have some fun.”

“Fun is not sitting in a dark room all hours of the day!”

To the relief of his mother, Ging does stop playing the JoyStation at all hours of the day. The books he read to learn how to take apart the console and how to hack his games were a gateway drug into the realm of non-fiction. Ging had only ever been interested in stories and myths before this.

There is one library in the whole of Whale Island. He spends his time checking out as many books as he can carry and brings them back to the house. On a whole range of subjects. Biology. Language. History. Technology. Politics. It isn’t a wanting, per se, but a _need_ : a craving for knowledge so intense that Ging cannot bite it back.

He understands that he doesn’t know enough about the world around him. That all the adults know more. That he is lacking in experience. So Ging reads and reads and reads and seeks to understand. He will not be clueless or ignorant or passive. He will not make mistakes. Ging doesn’t know enough to know what he will do with what he is learning, but with time and experience, he will.

His family disapprove.

The first time Ging tries to read a book during dinner, he’s sent straight to bed without food.

“It’s not natural,” he hears his uncle’s voice drift in. “For a girl to be reading so much… no, it’s not right at all.”

His grandfather is next. “She’s interested in all the wrong things. Is this your fault, Ged, or your wife’s? The girl should be learning how to cook, clean, launder. The brat isn’t like a girl at all. Can’t you make her be interested in clothes? Or makeup? Too young for boys, but you have to do something. This just isn’t normal.”

“Oh, come on, she’s our only girl, dad… why shouldn’t we spoil her a little longer?”

Soon enough his father is away at sea. It’s then that his mother and aunt launch an assault.

His mother is first. She sends him out hunting for herbs in the forest. Ging is fine with this. He often wanders through the forest and mountains. With the books he has been reading, he can catalogue the birds and animals and plants. He is too cautious to go near the animals, knowing that most of them will pose a danger to him.

When he returns with the required herbs, his mother has taken all his current books back to the library.

“I cleaned our room today!” Her smile is strained. “Spring cleaning is always important. Hah, Ging, why don’t you help me out with some cleaning today? Here’s the supplies, can you clean the bathroom please? That would be a great help. Thank you.”

Ging does as he is told.

Then he’s asked to clean the kitchen.

Then wash the extra bedsheets.

Then check that their food supplies are up to date.

Help with the preparations for cooking.

Watch as grandmother and mother cook.

Set the dishes.

Clear the plates.

Wash all the plates.

Take a bath for tomorrow.

Place all dirty clothes in the washing basket.

Go to sleep.

Instead of doing chores in the morning and then being free to do as he likes in the afternoon, Ging is kept constantly busy with practical matters. Cleaning and cooking, what a girl should be doing. Ging understands that this is expected of him. To learn how to be a perfect wife. When he is older he will be interested in clothes and makeup to attract a husband. When he secures one, he will do whatever he can to support his husband and raise children. This is what is expected of a girl.

There are three things that Ging knows.

One, he is not a girl.

Two, girls should not be limited to that life.

Three, he is too selfish to ever restrict himself for someone else.

He obeys his mother for three weeks. After that, on a sunny morning, once he has finished his morning chores he walks out of the house and up into the mountains. He runs. He climbs trees. He examines the plant life and spies on the animals and dips his feet into the lake.

He comes back just in time for dinner, which he is promptly sent to bed without.

The next day, he does the exact same routine. After two days, his mother gives up and allows him dinner. After a week, she gives up on discipling him at all. It is clear that Ging refuses to spend all of his time being a normal girl. What can they do? How can they stop a child from running about and playing?

“Maybe she’ll be normal when she grows up,” his aunt consoles his mother. “Maybe this is just a phase? When she hits her teens and starts noticing boys, it’ll all be different…”

Ging returns to the library and takes back his books. He hides them in a safe spot he’s built deep in the forest. During his free time, he reads and reads and tries to match up what he’s read with the world around him. He learns the plant-life and their qualities off by heart. It does make his grandmother smile when he comes home with useful herbs and seeds in his bag.

He fishes. Hours pass in silence, bright blue blending into purple-red to navy to black, while Ging is waiting for the bait to take.

As he does, there is something strange –

A silence that washes over him, enveloping in light –

A feeling, of being the predator watching the prey, of waiting for that perfect moment –

Ging doesn’t fully understand it.

One day, he is sent down to the port-town to fetch new shoes for his grandfather that had been ordered in. Ging squirms in the dress he’s made to wear and the braids making his hair neat. There are too many tall people passing by, too many stares, too much noise. The silence of the forest is far better. Here he is a wild animal forced in a collar and chains and dragged into the circus for a show.

Then he sees it.

There are a bunch of young men gathered around a glitchy TV, set up on a rickety stand with exposed electrical wires. They’re playing some knock-off JoyStation, but there is a game with them, a _new game_.

Ging is walking over to them before he knows it. “Hey,” he says, voice unfamiliar to even himself, “I want that.”

The teenagers glance over their shoulders, laugh and turn back to the game. “Piss off, girl,” one of them says.

“I said,” Ging repeats, “I want that.”

They stare back at him, annoyed now. “Huh? Whattya gonna do to get it then?”

He grins at them. “Let’s play. If I win against all of you, I get to take the game.”

The teenagers glance among each other. Then they shrug, as if to say, why not humour the little girl? There is no possible way that a six year old girl could win against all of us. “Okay, you’re on.”

Ging wins against all of them.

When they call more of their friends over to play, he wins against them.

When they rope in bystanders and older men and the smartest women, he wins against them.

At the end of the day, it’s Ging walking away with his prize and a snarky smile.

Suddenly, it’s like a dam has been broken. Ging knows now, that feeling of want and the success of getting something he doesn’t have. It lights him up. It sets him wild with fire. This is what Ging is here for. This is what he is meant to do. To want, to chase, to gain. There is nothing better than this hunt. This is the meaning of Ging’s life.

Before dinner, he says, “Abe, can we have your lemon cakes for dessert today?” and the entire family stare at him.

His grandmother is so surprised that she acquiesces.

He doesn’t stop there. Ging doesn’t become a chatterbox overnight, but if he wants something, he says so. Even he is surprised at how much he wants, at how he’s hungry for every new thing. He orders new books at the library. He eats new food. He plays new games and hacks them.

The next time Ging is in town, an old man playing chess invites him over. Ging reads the rules and plays and he wins. He wins the next game too. He wins chess against the best player in Whale Island. They play other games: shogi, go, cards. Ging bests them all.

The teenagers begin calling him to play sports with them. Football, basketball, tag. Even at six, Ging still manages to physically best them.

The librarian sets him puzzles and riddles and essays. Ging figures them all out. Ging receives perfect marks.

Whale Island marvels and talks, but never brags.

_It’s crazy, isn’t it? That arrogant brat. Someone’s going to have to teach her a lesson._

_It’s not natural for a little girl to be like that. Is that kid a demon? Did she come out of the mountains?_

_It’s weird. It’s wrong. Can’t she just be normal?_

Time passes and Whale Island grows used to their strange little prodigy. Ging’s family grow used to it, even if they don’t understand and they don’t like it. Ging catches his uncle and aunt saying to each other, “It was better when the little brat was silent, wasn’t it?” There is no talk of sending him to school, not even correspondence school, because girls aren’t meant to go to school.

That is the problem, isn’t it?

Ging isn’t a girl.

On a dark autumn night, Ging returns from the forest with his long dark hair chopped off. He cut it badly and it’s awkward and shaggy and mismatched. His mother stares at him, white-faced, like he’s killed someone.

When his grandfather starts to complain about _what he’s done to his hair, don’t you want to look like a girl_ , well – Ging sets them all straight. Ging isn’t a girl. Ging is a boy.

It doesn’t take long before word spreads around Whale Island. The island welcomes the news, almost with relief. _It makes sense,_ they gossip to each other. _It’s understandable if she was actually a boy. Boys can do those things. Yeah, that’s okay, that’s acceptable._

When his father returns from sea, he’s overjoyed.

He beams at Ging, ruffling his hair. “You know, I always thought you were… more like me, than your mother. So you were a boy after all! Ah, I always did want a little boy. Here, Ging, have you learned how to fish yet? Can you show me what you’ve done?”

His aunt and uncle aren’t sure how to act around him. Repeatedly his aunt approaches him, only to pause, shut her mouth and move away. Eventually she begins ignoring him entirely. His uncle takes to staring at him over dinner, and sometimes attempting smalltalk about boy stuff. Camping and fishing and fighting. Not that Ging does any real fighting.

His grandfather looks at him with distaste, as if Ging is some kind of spectacular failure, despite his incredible talents. Despite that, he is the one who orders Ging in new clothes and running shoes and forbids him from wearing dresses or skirts ever again. On occasion Ging is now sent to go help his grandfather and uncle at the port fisheries. It is what is expected of a boy.

His grandmother sits him down and cuts his hair into a nicer haircut. She switches flawlessly from calling Ging a girl to calling him a boy, as if he had never been a girl to her at all.

His mother takes it the worst.

She won’t speak to him. She won’t look at him. For days she wanders around with a frozen, dazed expression, as if her only child has died. In the midst of the night, Ging lies awake and listens to his mother cry into the blankets.

They don’t speak about it. Eventually she begins speaking to him, if only to rattle off his chores or order him to pass the salt. Her eyes skitter away whenever Ging tries to catch her eye. Whatever warmth was there between them is forever changed.

Ging sits at dinner and doesn’t speak, with an emptiness inside him. Still, he has no regrets.

Time passes and then when Ging is well past seven years old, his aunt falls pregnant.

At first, Ging doesn’t understand or care. It’s just a baby. Okay, a cousin for him. Who cares? Then as his aunt’s belly swells and the doctor from the mainland visits, she proudly announces to the family:

“I’m having a little _girl_!”

Oh.

His family go crazy over the course of the pregnancy. Everything his aunt needs is acquired. Ging’s old cot is dug out of the storeroom, repainted in a brighter pink and set up in aunt and uncle’s room. Toys and blankets and clothes are bought for. Their family aren’t wealthy and so much of what Ging had when he was a baby is reused for this coming girl.

It annoys him.

No matter how many amazing feats Ging pulls off, the only thing his family want to talk about is this girl. It doesn’t matter if Ging is smarter or stronger than most of the adults on Whale Island. Who cares? There’s a new baby! A cute little girl! Who already has all the attention and Ging has none. Not even negative attention.

Ging is still listening. He picks up on it. His aunt and mother are replacing him with this new little girl.

He has always thought of his family in that childish sense of not seeing them as real people. Adults who feed me and clothe me and keep a roof over my head. They look after me. Key word: me. Ging never thought that they would direct all their attention towards someone else. It feels wrong. The universe out of sync.

By the time Ging is eight, the baby is born.

His uncle places her in his little arms, saying, “This is Mito, your new baby cousin!”, this red wriggling ball, and Ging is ready to hate her, when, when –

She looks up at him with hazel eyes.

Smiles.

Ging is ready to hate her. His family are ready to love her. But Mito is a little person all unto herself and the person she loves most is Ging.

It is Ging she reaches out for with her little hands. It is Ging who is the only one who can calm her down from a crying fit. It is Ging who is the only one who can rock her to sleep. It is Ging she crawls to. It is Ging she smiles and laughs with. It is Ging who is there when she takes her first step and when she says her first word.

Instead of saying _Mama_ or _Dada_ or _Granny_ first, the first person whose name she can say is “Gi-gi!”

Ging loves her.

He was ready to hate her with spite, for taking all the attention away from him, but he can’t. Mito is the first person Ging truly loves. The first person Ging really realised was an actual person, just like him. He sees it first-hand, in this little tiny person, a human waking up, with their own wants and thoughts and feelings. No one else had ever seemed so complex or real to Ging before.

He babysits her and he makes her bottles of milk and he brushes out her small curls of orange hair. He reads age-appropriate books out loud to her. He tells her stories and plays with her toys.

Yet, in the wake of this, Ging begins to realise how much he doesn’t care about anyone else. In loving someone for the first time, he realises how boring everyone else is. How ready he would be, to leave them in an instant. His family sour on him. They resent him even more, because Mito loves Ging the most. At the same time, they relax, because Mito has made Ging more controllable. Time spent looking after a baby is time unspent in the mountains or kicking up chaos in town.

Ging is fine, because when Mito is sleeping, he spends his time meditating.

When he sinks into that deep and soft state, he can sense something.

A light.

When he focuses, Ging thinks he can almost see himself shining –

But then some distraction always occurs to break him out of that state.

When Mito is two years old, runs on wobbly legs and babbles on in talk that only ten-year-old Ging can understand, a fateful event occurs.

Ging is old enough that he hasn’t been cautious of the forest animals for a long time. He understands their habitats and behaviours. He has a nice deal going with the tourist shop in the port town, where if he takes photographs of the forest animals and gives them to the shop, Ging will get a cut of the eventual sale.

The sun is warm against the back of his neck as Ging walks down into the port town, photos in his bag and Mito clinging onto his hand. He pushes open the door of the tourist shop with his free hand: “Hey, I’m here – _oh_.”

Ging stops dead.

There is an old man leaning backwards against the counter, inspecting a toy fish dangling from a finger.

Dangerous.

Ging can sense it, immediately. That strange light. This old man has it in _spades_.

The old man's eyes drift from the toy fish to Ging, standing motionless at the door. He has a lazy expression, but then he grins savage. He knows.

Mito tugs on Ging’s hand, breaking him out of the spell. “We go shop,” she whines up at him.

Ging blinks down at her. “Ah, yeah. You want chocolate?”

“Yes! Choccy!”

They walk into the shop together. Ging holds his head high as he approaches the counter, ignoring the old man’s gaze. “Yo,” he says to the man behind the counter. “I got the goods. Here.” He passes over the photographs.

The shopkeeper flicks through them. “Ah, good selection today. Thanks Ging. Here’s your money… and a chocolate bar for the little girl.” They slide over the counter. Ging nods his thanks. Mito squeals and the shopkeeper smiles down at her. Then he turns his head to the old man. “Ah, Isaac, this is Ging and Mito. Ging’s our resident little genius here.”

Isaac raises an eyebrow. “Little genius?”

Ging looks at him, keeping his expression flat, and then: “That’s what they call anyone smart around here.”

Isaac laughs. It sounds like rust. “You know what they call people like you where I come from?”

“What?”

The old man just looks at him, smiling. “Hunters.”

“What’s that?”

Ging is intelligent enough to realise Isaac can’t mean a person who traps animals, or a literal hunter. There are plenty of fishermen around Whale Island. He has to mean something different. But as the old man tilts his head, Ging has an instinctive feeling that he has answered wrongly.  

The old man turns to the shopkeeper, commenting, “Not much internet out here, eh?”

“Oh, no, no. Whale Island likes to be traditional.”

The old man pushes himself off the counter and rolls his shoulder. His gaze is suddenly intense upon Ging. “The exam happens in the second week of every January.” He strolls past Ging to the door, then says over his shoulder, “If there’s something you want, come get it.”

The door swings shut behind him.

What is a hunter?

Ging doesn’t know but he is going to find out.

He spends weeks scouring the books in the library that reference hunting, but nothing out of the ordinary shows up. There is nothing about an exam of any sort and nothing in January.

That doesn’t matter anymore to Ging, because something more interesting shows up.

One of the books is on the Lurka Ruins, a royal burial ground. There is little information about it. They are falling to pieces, unable to be shown to the rest of the world. The only expeditions are privately funded and sworn to secrecy. It’s unlikely that there is anything left to be researched from it.

Yet as Ging reads the information about the Lurka Ruins, he wants it to see more than he has ever wanted to see anything in his entire life. His heart burns. His daydreams drift towards those mysterious tombs. At night he lies awake with those thoughts.

It is by accident that Ging finds out what a Hunter is.

The sea is roiling today, the wind making the waves slash against the rock of the harbour walls. A group of fishermen are smoking while they stare out at the horizon, wondering if a storm is on the way. There is. Ging can smell it in the air.

He’s pointed this out, but the fishermen have only laughed at him.

As the conversations turn to different subjects, Ging stands there silent and irritated. Why does he have to be here? Why does he have to be a fisherman? Is he going to spend the rest of his life trapped here on one little island, where nobody but Mito likes him?

“…awk sure, it was one of them fishing Hunters that came down and found the beast, so it was,” one of the fishermen is saying.

“A hunter?” Ging interrupts. “What’s a hunter?”

The fisherman smirks. “Ah, you’re one of those Whale Island natives, aren’t you? Don’t you guys know anything about the real world?” He turns to his friends, putting on a high-pitched voice. “Hey guys, _what’s a hunter_?”

They all snicker.

One of them takes pity on Ging. “A Hunter is someone who hunts something.”

“That’s obvious,” Ging snaps.

“There’s more to it than that!” The fisherman stamps out his cigarette with his boot. “They’re part of the Hunter Association. They’re all rich as God, with connections to the V5 leaders. Doctors, fighters, animal specialists, all sorts of specialisations. They take on the most dangerous jobs in the world. Gotta be a top-notch fighter, of course.”

Ging stares. He doesn’t care about any of that. Is that really all there is? Just that?

“And having a Hunter License means you can go pretty much anywhere. It’s like a VIP ticket into every destination in the world.”

Oh.

So he could go to the Lurka Ruins if he becomes a Hunter.

Ging is smiling without realising it, because the fishermen start laughing at him again.

“What, does the little genius think he can be a Hunter too? Come on! Maybe you’re a big fish here, but out _there_ ,” the fishermen gestures with his cigarette to the horizon, where the sky meets the sea, and beyond that the unknowable world that Ging has never seen, “You’re no one and nothing, kiddo! You’ll get killed your first month!”

Ging doesn’t respond.

He doesn’t have to prove his worth to them. He doesn’t have to prove his worth to anyone. All that matters to Ging is his own wants and desires. What he wants is out there. Beyond this little island in the middle of nowhere. Beyond the horizon he has never seen past. Ging wants the whole world.

He does his work, he goes home and all the while he is thinking and planning about what he is going to do to go out there.

Mito is at the age where she doesn’t need constant supervision day and night in case something happens to her. So Ging finds himself wandering more, through the forest and up into the mountains, like he did before Mito was born. He maps out the entire island with his feet and he finds it too small. Too constraining.

How could he have ever imagined that he could have stayed here his entire life?

Did he ever imagine it? Or did the future just never cross his mind?

Growing up and away from the childish way of only experiencing the present, Ging for the first time thinks about what he wants out of the future. He has always known that he was different from the rest of his family, but this is the first time he realises that he does not have to stay here. Ging can go. Ging does not need his family’s support.

Food and clothes and a roof over his head: Ging is grateful for being provided with them so far, but in the future, in the world beyond this island, Ging will be fine on his own. He is independent. Realising that is like realising that the cage door is open and he is free to walk out any time he likes.

However, his wanderings are different from before.

Mito follows him.

Three years old now and so stubborn in following behind him. Wherever Ging goes to, Mito runs after him as if she’s afraid that in the instant she loses sight of him, Ging will disappear.

As it turns out, she is right to have that fear.

As he wanders through the forest and the mountains, across little streams and up rough hills of brown earth, Ging’s mind is at rest. He is still. His body glows. There is something he is working on, a fusion of this still state and his intense desire to escape.

Something that should not be possible.

Something that he has no words for.

Something that he will learn about in the world beyond this island.

There has to be someone else out there who is like him.

When Ging wanders like this, he isn’t thinking about Mito at all. So despite how she runs after him, he comes down the mountains, back through the forest and home for dinner without noticing that Mito isn’t following behind him anymore.

When Ging steps through the door into the kitchen, his mother doesn’t look at him. All she asks is, “Where’s Mito?” in a clipped tone.

Ging looks over his shoulder.

No Mito.

“…ah.”

The first time it happens, the whole of Whale Island goes into the forest and mountains in a panic, searching for Mito. His uncle and aunt scream at him. Ging is the only one who finds her. He carries her all the way back home in his arms.

It happens again and again and again.

Eventually the island gives up and starts gossiping that Mito must be deliberately getting lost so that Ging is forced to go seek her out. After all, she does love her older cousin so much.  His aunt and uncle hate Ging even more after this starts happening, but Ging finds it cute to an extent.

Until the storm comes.

The worst storm the island has seen for fifty years. Trees are wrenched out of the earth with roots trailing behind them. Fishing boats dash against the rocks and break. The rain pelts down relentlessly, as if trying to break the sodden earth itself to pieces.

They gather in the living room: Ging, grandmother, mother, aunt and uncle.

One look of shared horror behind them is all it takes to know that _Mito is out there somewhere_.

“I’ll go,” Ging says, standing up, determined. He takes uncle’s coat to wear over his thin shirt and runs out into the rain. He ignores the pain of the cold against his face, the wind driving him back.

He doesn’t notice his mother at the window, watching him go.

By the time he finds Mito, Ging is covered in mud from toe to thigh, and the cold has snuck in underneath the thick winter coat. Mito is colder still, curled up in a ball underneath the roots of a tree. Ging curses her out for hiding somewhere that is still so dangerous, but Mito just clings to Ging’s neck and hiccups tears.

There’s no way back.

The storm is turning the forest into a flood, water reducing the earth to sliding mud rushing downwards. The trees shake in the wind. There are no roads left to guide his way back.

Hair plastered against skin, arms clinging around his cousin, Ging stares out at this destruction, this terrible force of nature that no human can fight against.

He closes his eyes.

Be still. Focus. A light, an intense desire to escape –

“Ging?” Mito whispers, breath warm against his neck, but Ging doesn’t hear her.

A warm light.

Then –

Ging opens his eyes and they are standing in front of their house.

The rest is a blur: go inside, get him and Mito out of wet clothes, into a warm bath, sleep until the storm is over.

The storm passes.

Ging is left with the consequences, positive and negative. His mother had gone out just minutes after him and had stumbled around for hours looking for them. All three of them (Ging, Mito and her) are ill now, but his mother is the worst off.

His grandfather was out fishing before the storm came. He was in one of the boats dashed against the rocks. They have not searched for the bodies yet, but his survival is very unlikely. His grandmother has not spoken since the men came to tell her.

His father is far, far away at sea. He is surely fine. Long months always stretch out without any communication from his father. There is no point in worrying.

Ging can teleport.

He isn’t entirely sure how to activate it or what conditions it has. But he can do it. He’s done it before. So Ging knows that he is strong – so he knows that he can survive – so he knows that if the Hunter Exam requires fighting ability, he will win.

Ging, Mito and mother are banished to Ging and his mother’s room until they recover from their illness. They all curl up together on his parents’ bed, Ging in the middle. His aunt and uncle, silent and grateful that Mito is still alive, swap between taking care of the sick trio and taking care of their grieving grandmother.

Ging sleeps in a daze.

Once, he wakes up during the night, hot and feverish, to find his mother’s hand carding through his short hair.

“Mhmmmmmmm,” he groans, “Stop that.”

“Do you remember when I used to braid your hair?” she says distantly, looking through him. “I loved your long hair. I loved brushing it.”

Ging, half-asleep and not hearing her, just hums.

“You’re growing up,” she whispers to him. “Soon you’ll have your first period and grow curvy. What will you do then, my little child? No, you won’t stay here. You’ll have to go to the mainland for hormones and surgery. Even then, you’ll always be shorter than any other man.”

His mother untangles her fingers from Ging’s hair. As they drift back to sleep, she whispers a condition.

Ging and Mito recover quickly. Soon Mito is following Ging around the house and to town again. His mother recovers but is left sickly and weakened. A funeral is held for the fishermen lost to the waves and rebuilding efforts are made for buildings damaged in the storm. The forest and mountains drain of water and little seedings begin to sprout.

His aunt and uncle make plans to go on vacation in a couple of months. They believe they are in desperate need of it.

Ging fishes.

He sells the fishes he catches down in the port town. With the money he receives, he buys supplies. A sturdy rucksack. Collapsible sleeping bag. Rope. He pulls at the collar of his shirt. Will this be useful? Or would wearing more layers, more dirt-resistant and long-lasting clothes be better? Maybe he’ll find out in the real world.

Ging never did get the trick of how to do laundry right.

One day, Ging is fishing in the mountain lake, perched on a tree branch. Mito is watching from the ground, biting her nails, the edges of her dress grass-stained. Ging is waiting. He is still. The quarry will move just as expected and this is it, this is what he lives for – the hunt.

“Oh, wow! Ging caught a big fish!”

The entire population of Whale Island is reluctantly impressed that Ging Freecss is able to catch the Lord of the Lake. The fish that would take five full grown men to catch. But they shake their heads too. _The arrogant little kid is ridiculous. What else can he do? He has to run out of achievements and start being normal at some point!_

Ging is done with Whale Island.

When Ging arrives home, his mother is sitting at the table, staring down at the wood as if the doctor has given her a week to live. There is a blanket wrapped around her shoulders.

“I’ll sign it,” she says as he passes by on the way to their room.

“Huh?”

“Your Hunter Exam application. Give it to me, you need parental consent. I’ll sign it.”

Ging stares at her. Has she been going through his things? How does she even know what a Hunter is? He doesn’t think to question how she knows that he is leaving. It’s obvious. Ging has been ready to leave for a long, long time. Ging is always ready to leave.

His mother stares back. “How did you think you were going to get my permission?”

Ging scratches his chin. “Uh, I was just gonna forge your signature…?”

His grandmother sighs from the corner. “Just go get your form, love.” As Ging shrugs and turns to go get it, he hears her say to his mother, “There’s no stopping him. He’s a force of nature, it’s not your fault he’s like this.”

His mother signs his application card. His aunt and uncle leave for their vacation. The days seem to brighten, to speed up. This is it. This is the beginning of his real life. No more slow days, no more easy wins. No more being stuck operating at hyper-speed when everyone else seems so slow and boring. All that’s left is to pack up his thing and leave and leave and never stop.

Mito is crying.

Running after him through the forest, the leaves dancing in the wind, she has finally caught on to what everyone else has already realised. “A Hunter?” she cries, not understanding.

“Yeah,” Ging says, not turning back.

“You’re leaving?” Her little hands are outstretched, small face confused. “But why?”

Ging looks back at her.

He loves Mito. He really does. His heart is heavy even as he determinedly walks away from her. He could stay here and look after her. Take the Hunter Exam at a reasonable age. Or he could take Mito with him, and they would figure it out together, how to survive in this big bad world out there. Or he could just forget his dreams, stay here forever and be a safe kept fisherman for the rest of his life.

He won’t.

He won’t regret it either.

For this is the final step of the hunt.

To want, to chase, to gain and then finally to throw away. For a Hunter must always be hunting. A Hunter can never be satisfied with what he has in his hands. A Hunter must be selfish enough to be constantly moving, always leaving, to break the hearts of the people he loves for the sake of his own selfish dreams. That is what it means in this world, to be a Hunter. No regrets.

“There’s something I want,” Ging replies and that is the end of it.

**Author's Note:**

> you ever write 7k about the childhood of the most hated character in a dead fandom
> 
> anyway since tumblr is dead follow me on twitter @silversgone. i have no idea how fandom twitter works but i need an outlet for this haha
> 
> Title is from "Centuries" by Fall Out Boy.


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